So
far we have seen:
Part Two
Part Three
While everyone dukes it out like superpowered ten-year-olds—exactly the sort of behavior the SHRA was supposed to prevent, by the way—SHIELD attempts to close the portal with everyone inside, further demonstrating that they do not have anyone’s best interests at heart and should be rebelled against with extreme prejudice. Cloak manages to teleport everybody out in the nick of time, but they end up in Midtown and start tearing the city apart.
In
the middle of the fight, Namor changes his mind for some reason and comes
charging into battle with his Atlanetean soldiers. Fortunately for the pro-reg side, the Thor
clone is ready for action, as are many of the fifty-state heroes we saw
earlier. Everything continues to
escalate until Taskmaster (I think) tries to shoot the Invisible Woman, causing
Reed to go all heroic sacrifice on us and leap into the gun’s path. Too little too late as far as I’m concerned,
but Sue goes ballistic.
Meanwhile,
Hercules fights off the Thor Clone while referencing Lloyd Bentsen of all
people.
I’m
sorry, but how much has Hercules changed since the late eighties? Because during DeFalco’s run on Thor, Hercules was the party-loving
Boisterous Bruiser who mooched off Thor’s secret identity and took bubble baths
while watching The Flintstones. How does he even know who Lloyd Bentsen
is? Heck, how many of YOU know who Lloyd
Bentsen is?! And no googling! Or Wikipedia!
Cap
and Iron Man go at it like they’re on Maury
until a group of civilians, who have apparently been infected with the 2002
Spider-Man brand of lunacy (“You mess
with one of us, you mess with all of us!” is said in spirit if not in words),
tackle Cap and insist that he is the
one hurting people, not Iron Man and the rest.
Cap looks out at the smoking ruins of Midtown and has whatever the opposite
of an epiphany is.
...
...............................................
Let me see if I understand this. SHIELD turned the entire country into a police state with agents, government-sanctioned heroes and tanks everywhere. Anyone who breaks the law, regardless of age, is violently assaulted and thrown in prison, with SHIELD not giving a crap about property damage or human rights of any sort. You think that is going to keep people safe? You think that isn’t worth fighting against? You’re telling me that Captain America surrendered because he believed a brutal, uncompromising, “FASCISTIC” government policy which suppresses freedom of expression and jails all active protestors wasn’t worth rebelling against?
I’m
gonna assume you all are familiar enough with Captain “I punched Hitler in the
face” America’s backstory to understand why this is categorically the Worst
Idea Ever.
So
Cap turns himself in for dumb reasons, everyone else stands down, and Reed
writes to Sue.
Awww, is the pressure of rebuilding the superhero community from the bottom up a burden for poor little Reed? Then maybe he should HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE. What does he want, a hug? Sympathy? Go suck a lemon, dipwad.
And
yes, each state’s team is just as stereotypical and uncreative as this
one. Utah’s heroes are a bunch of
Mormons. I kind of hope Tennessee’s
heroes are a group of Elvis impersonators and Maine’s are lobster men. The possibilities are endless, really.
Still,
some people refuse to accept the general amnesty the President offered (how he
was convinced to offer said amnesty is never stated) and continue to resist. While Cap angsts in jail (it’s your own
fault, moron), Tony is appointed the new head of SHIELD because the writer has
never heard of established personality traits and it’s way too late to buy him
a dictionary now.
Reed
goes on to write that all his success is meaningless without Sue by his side,
blah blah blah. Basically, his note can be
summarized as “Dear Sweetie, the ends justify the means. I was right, you were wrong, come home
please. Kissies, Reed.” And it
works.
You deserve each other. Though give Reed a tiny fraction of a sliver of credit; he at least has some idea that what they did was awful and promises to never do it again (HA HA). Tony, on the other hand, hasn’t stopped being a clod since day one and shows no signs of slowing down now, crowing to Miriam Sharpe about their victory and how “the best is yet to come.” The only way that could possibly be true is if he is about to sell something to Mephisto in exchange for erasing this debacle from continuity.
GAAAAAAAAAAAH
I HATE THIS COMIC. I can’t believe I
spent twenty-five bucks on this filth!
It’s so pointless and unpleasant and no one is likable not even the
rebels and the pro-reg side is even worse and nothing makes sense and if they
would just sit down and talk to each for two seconds this wouldn’t have
happened and and and…
There
are so many places where they were obviously relying on tie-ins to fill in the
gaps, e.g. Bishop wanting to talk to Tony, Cable’s sudden disappearance, and
Namor changing his mind about getting involved.
How’d you like it if you were reading a novel and every third chapter
was sold separately? That’s what this
feels like.
I’ve
stated multiple times that I do like this premise, but its presentation is
deeply flawed, and not just because it can’t stand on its own. Even if the public initially supported the
SHRA—which I can see happening under the right circumstances—the sheer level of
resistance and destruction it caused should
have made at least some civilians and
civil servants rethink whether or not it was worth it. That never happens.
The
biggest problem of all is the Superhero Registration Act itself. Specifically, what is it?
It’s never actually defined. We go from “superheroes must register with the government” to “Spiderman unmasks on TV.” That’s not even remotely the same concept. Do all superheroes have to give their identities to the world instead of just SHIELD? If not, why the frack would Spidey do that?
And
what does it mean to successfully register with the government anyway? Do you have to give them a list of all your
powers and weaknesses? In the case of
people like Iron Man who don’t have actual powers, would he have to give up the
schematics to the armor? Because again,
he has spent years preventing that from happening. Remember Armor
Wars? He was more than willing to
fight against the government to get his tech away from everyone else, even
other heroes. Tony can’t stand the idea
of people misusing his inventions to hurt innocents, placing everything he does
in this miniseries firmly into the Character Derailment trope.
(Author’s
Note: Wow, I just wrote a whole page without a picture. To break up the monotony, here is a splash
page of Tony Stark committing every conceivable crime against fashion.)
Furthermore,
why would any hero be amenable to
publicizing ways that villains could kill them, hurt their loved ones and/or
steal their tech? Is making the public, many of whom hate you, feel a little better
seriously more important than protecting your family?
And
if registering doesn’t involve
telling the government how to murder you, then what does it mean? And what does
it even mean to be a superhero? If
you’re just a regular mutant and you use your powers in public for something other
than taking down a criminal—I don’t know, the barista didn’t heat up your
Starbucks enough so you use heat vision to take it up a notch—is that enough to
make you a superhero? Would helping out
other patrons by heating up their Starbucks in the same way make you a hero? Seems like this law would be incredibly easy
to manipulate so SHIELD could take down anyone they felt like, and even the
pro-reg side should be demanding a rewrite so it more closely matches their
goals.
And
what about the fact that none of the people arrested seemed likely to get a
fair trial? Did anyone express concern
about that, or have superheroes been declared non-human or otherwise unworthy
of basic rights? Did the bill actually
say this should be happening, or was this SHIELD abusing their power?
But
again, I don’t know if any of this is accurate because the writer never tells
us ANYTHING about this stupid law!
Not
only is the SHRA too vague to make any sense, it wouldn’t have stopped Nitro
anyway because he was a villain, not a hero.
I somehow doubt guys like Doctor Octopus or the Serpent Society will be
lining up to register for this thing, meaning the SHRA will solve precisely
NOTHING.
On
top of that, no one on the pro-reg side is given anywhere near enough
motivation to come off as anything but a terrible excuse for a human being,
especially Reed and Tony. And that’s before they start with the murdering and
villain recruitment, which is just unacceptable no matter whose side you’re
on. The characters show next to no
remorse for their actions, not after it’s all over and certainly not while
they’re committing these atrocities. The
closest thing we see to genuine remorse is when they occasionally flail around
going “nooo don’t make me do thiiiis” while punching each other in the
face. It’s… remember that scene in Rise of Arsenal #3 where Batman tries to
‘help’ Arsenal overcome his heroin addiction?
Let
me be clear here. I love Iron Man. He’s one of my favorite Marvel characters. I have devoted hours upon hours of my life to
reading hundreds of Iron Man comics (almost three hundred so far, and that’s
not counting Avengers comics with him
in them). I’ve seen the film three times
and the sequels twice each. I have an Iron
Man bobblehead on my piano. I have his
head mounted on my bedroom wall.
But
in order to continue loving this character, I have to plug my ears and start
singing bad pop songs any time Civil War
comes up. As far as I’m concerned, Civil War and virtually every Iron Man
comic that came after it do not exist, and I have to read fanfiction to soothe
the giant-sized ache in my heart left by this cruddy comic. Not that that’s really a chore, but I should
WANT to see fanworks because I ENJOY what I read, not NEED them because what I
read SUCKED.
That
reminds me: let’s talk slash.
I
hinted at this before, but some fans have noted that Civil War can be interpreted as Steve and Tony going through a
nasty divorce and fighting over custody of the kids, particularly Peter
Parker. Personally, I’m not sure it’s a
divorce so much as it is the world’s most violent case of
stuck-in-the-closet-itis, but either way, the conjecture resulted in a glorious
landslide of fanworks featuring the two, which was only exacerbated by their
obvious UST in the movie. And the
ensuing cartoon. Seriously, they’re
like the Sam and Diane of the Marvel Universe. It also led to the slightly more bizarre phenomenon
of the ‘superfamily,’ a fan-created alternate universe wherein Steve and Tony
really are married and have adopted
Peter as their son. In my view, Aunt May
and Uncle Ben play way too big a role in Peter’s backstory to ever just put
them on a bus like that, but I guess if they hadn’t existed or hadn’t been able
to take Peter in after his parents’ deaths… it’s all AU anyway, and some of
it’s cute, so whatever. If it makes you
feel better, go for it.
Why
do I bring this up? Well frankly, I was
getting tired of the negativity, and that was literally the only good thing I
could think to say in connection with this cesspool. Also, this little tidbit: Reed Richards later
discovered several alternate universes where the Civil War did not happen. What changed to prevent it? That depends on the universe, of course, but in one particular case, two things happened.
First, Tony was born a woman (whose name was Natasha for some oddball
reason). Second, and more importantly…
The
moral of the story here, kiddies, is that if New York had legalized same-sex
marriage a few years earlier, Civil War
would not have happened. At least I
assume that’s the moral. It’s better
than whatever Mark Millar was aiming for.
(A second moral: Tony having terrible fashion sense is a multiuniversal constant.)
You
know what Civil War should have
been? Public Enemies. For those
who don’t know about it and are too busy/lazy/mean to read my review of it, Public Enemies was published by DC in
2003-04 and featured Lex Luthor as the President. During his administration, the heroes had to choose:
either believe Luthor has turned over a new leaf and support him, or resist his
rise to power and hunt for evidence that he’s still a scuzzball. One hero in particular, Captain Atom, is a
soldier (making him one of the few characters to actually earn the title of captain) and can’t bring himself to openly
defy his Commander-in-Chief, despite his dislike of Luthor’s policies and unhappiness
at having to attack his more rebellious friends.
In
conclusion, Civil War can die in a hole. This comic has no fun, no redeeming
qualities, and no point but to destroy for destruction’s sake. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m due in therapy,
and by therapy I mean read all the fanfiction I can get my hands on.
Images from Civil
War #7, Iron Man #219, Rise of
Arsenal #3, my lousy camera phone, Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2 and
Superman/Batman #2
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